Partner Elsa Gidlow
Queer Places:
Madrona, 20 Scenic Rd, Fairfax, CA 94930, USA
Druid Heights, Camino del Canyon, Muir Woods, Mill Valley, CA 94965, USA
Isabel
Grenfell Quallo (4 April 1893 – 21 September 1985) was a Congolese-born
British-American domestic worker and community activist known for her
involvement in the development of Druid Heights, in Marin
County, California. Born in the Congo
Free State, she was educated in England and then moved with her mother to Kingston,
Jamaica. Marrying at 16, she immigrated with her husband to New York City
in 1914. Struggling with racism and
her husband's mental illness, she supported her children by working as a domestic and
waitress. Through contacts in the theater district, she made the acquaintance
of writer Elsa Gidlow,
becoming her partner for more than ten years. While living in California, the
women worked with builder and jazz musician Roger Somers, and his wife Mary,
to create the bohemian community, which would attract many of those involved
in the countercultural movements, active in the United States between 1950 and
1970.
Grace Isabel Grenfell was born on 4 April 1893 in Léopoldville[Notes
1] in the Congo
Free State to Patience Rosanna Edgerley and George
Grenfell.[1][2][5] Grenfell's
father was a missionary and explorer, who mapped the territory of the Congo
Basin, including Mount
Cameroon and the Lungasi, Mungo, Sanga Yabiang,
and Wouri Rivers,
opening it up to mission work.[6] After
his first wife died, Grenfell began an affair with his housekeeper,
Patience, who he soon married.[7] Her
mother, was the daughter of Jamaican missionaries who had come to West
Africa to establish a Baptist mission in 1843. She was born in Fernando
Po, Equatorial
Guinea.[1] After
her marriage in Victoria, Cameroon,
Patience had eight children with Grenfell.[1][5] "Isabel",
as she was known, was the youngest daughter of the four sisters who
survived.[1] She
began her education in Bolobo in
1898,[3] but
by 1903 had joined her older sisters Carrie and Gertrude, who were attending
school at Walthamstow
Hall in Sevenoaks,
Kent.[1][8] Her
teacher at Walthamstow, was Emily Mary Watts, mother of the writer Alan
Watts.[9] Their
older sister Patience had already graduated and returned to the Congo in
1897, but died two years later.[1]
George Grenfell died on 1 July 1906 in Basoko in
the Congo Free State and the family lived briefly in Cornwall near
George's family, until it was suggested that they relocate.[10][11] In
1908, his widow moved to Kingston,
Jamaica with Isabel. Both Carrie and Gertrude followed the family and
joined them later in Jamaica.[1] On
15 August 1909, Isabel married Arthur Hubert Quallo, in Saint
Catherine Parish, Jamaica.[12] Her
husband was of African, Jewish, and Spanish descent and operated a hotel.[12][13] The
couple had two daughters, Yolanda (born 1910) and Patience (born 1911) and a
set of twin daughters (born 1912) before moving to New York City, in 1914.[2][14] Four
more children followed in New York: Grace Olivia (1915–1917), George (1917),
Phyllis (1919), and Arthur (1922).[2][15] The
marriage was not a happy one for Quallo, and by 1928, her husband was
confined in the Dannemora
State Hospital, suffering from mental illness.[2][11][16][17]
Quallo's education, focused on preparation to become a wife, needlework,
and dancing, had not given her the skills to support her children
adequately. Her husband had spent largely and left no savings. Needing to
provide for her large family, she took a position as a domestic
worker in the home of a clergyman. She eventually left the job for a
better-paying position as a waitress in the theater district[18] and
had a fifteen-year relationship with another woman beginning in the early
1930s.[11] Her
mother died in 1928, her last living sibling died in 1930, and her husband
died in 1935.[19][20][21]
In 1946, through mutual friends, Quallo was introduced to the writer, Elsa
Gidlow, but because Gidlow lived in California and Quallo lived in New
York, the two women's relationship began by correspondence.[22][23] Quallo
wrote the first letter and explained in her correspondences, her background,
her difficult adjustment to life in the United States because of the
prevalent segregation
policies, and her relationships.[24][25] Gidlow
soon invited Quallo to come visit and by the middle of 1947, Quallo had come
to California, unsure of how long her stay would be.[23][26] She
was concerned about difficulties that might arise because of their
association[26] and
expressed them to Gidlow saying, "A woman who discovers she is a lesbian and
is a visible member of a minority has three strikes against her".[27] Gidlow
assured Quallo that her community was open-minded and there would not be
problems.[28] Their
friendship quickly turned into a romance, which would last for the next ten
years.[29]
Quallo moved in to Gidlow's home in Fairfax, Marin
County, California.[30] She
joined in intellectual evenings hosted there with students and faculty from
the American
Academy of Asian Studies.[31] The
couple came under scrutiny of the California
Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities for their
interracial association, as well as their contacts with Chinese friends.[32][33] When
Gidlow's mother, Alice May, suffered a stroke and needed permanent care,
Quallo agreed to assist her, as she had previously worked as a nurse's aid.
They moved Alice in to their home and installed her in a downstairs room
fitted with a hospital bed.[34] Quallo
provided the constant care Alice needed for the last 9 months of her life,
while Gidlow worked as a journalist to provide their support.[35]
In 1954, hoping to escape from the increasing urbanization of Fairfax,
Gidlow bought a 5-acre property in rural Marin County near Muir
Woods.[36][37] Gidlow
wanted to create a community for her varied friends and felt that the
atmosphere in Fairfax had shifted.[36] The
property had been found by Roger Somers and his wife Mary, but they did not
have the funds to make the purchase.[38] Despite
the inability of single women to obtain credit at the time, Gidlow was able
to borrow funds, after her friend Dorothy
Erskine collateralized the
loan.[38] The
two couples shared the property, naming it Druid
Heights, and moved in shortly before the summer
solstice.[37][39][40]
The group renovated the two houses on the property, converted the barns,
and piped water for the buildings and gardens.[41] For
the first few years, Quallo helped develop the property, which had become a
mecca for counter-cultural figures and feminists,[40][42] but
in 1957, she returned to Manhattan to
care for two of her daughters who were having health issues.[43]
Quallo died on 21 September 1985 in New York City.[1][44] The
letters she wrote to Gidlow are maintained in the archives of the GLBT
Historical Society in San Francisco.[11]
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